Hello everyone. Okay, wow, I am SO SORRY I left you with that cliffhanger for SO LONG. I really have been meaning to pick this story back up for a long time, but I never have the motivation, and now I'm going into my Senior year, and I really want to concentrate on my own original writing. I had a whole bunch of stuff planned out for this book and I was planing on finishing it off with a 5th book, but as I sat down and really thought about it, I don't have much time to use for writing that much and the time I do have, I would like to use for my own original writing. So I have pretty much totally re-planned everything for this story. (You didn't think I would really leave you with no ending at all, did you?) I am only going to publish five more full length (so maybe 2-3 thousand words), to wrap up the cliff hangers, and an epilogue to explain anything else, and finally give these characters the happy ending they deserve. I will try and update this every day, because if I don't, I don't think I'll ever actually finish writing it.
As always, reviews are really fuel to the fire and are always helpful, so definitely feel free to let me know what you think!
Previously: Damon, Elena, Katherine, Max, Caroline, Bonnie, Jeremy, Lexi, and Stefan had devised a plan to take down Klaus by luring him in by having Katherine act as Max, and then doing a linking spell. If one of them could get their hands on Klaus's heart, Bonnie could turn him to stone by using Jeremy's life as collateral. The Plan almost failed, when Kol showed up out of the blue and turned the tied on our heroes.
That was when the real Max showed up. However, when Klaus lunged to kill her, believing it would finally allow him to make his hybrids, it was not Max who got impaled, but a human Damon, who jumped in front of Max at the last second. Taking advantage of everyone's shock, Caroline and Stefan took down Kol and finally completed Bonnie's spell.
The spell worked and Jeremy died. Determined, Bonnie did everything in her power to bring him back to life, and she succeeded, but seemingly at the cost of her own life. Jeremy is now the only one who can see her as a ghost.
Both distraught at Damon's death, Stefan and Elena have two vastly different reactions. She clings to his body, desperate to bring him back and finally makes a sobbing confession of her love for him. Stefan runs out of the house and kills the first person he sees, deciding to flip the switch on his humanity rather then deal with the pain of his brother's death. What he doesn't know, is that Matt had followed him from the party and witnessed him killing.
BEGINNING OF BOOK 4:
The Pierce Shift
Damon woke on the couch. He didn't even need to open his eyes to know where he was. He knew the scent and spatial feeling of his living room like the back of his hand. There was a fire crackling and someone was sobbing. He could hear at least four or five heart beats in the room, but no one was talking. There was a somber air to the room. Something was wrong.
A million thoughts ran through his groggy head, his eyes still closed. What had happened? What was everyone so sad about? Why couldn't he remember how he had gotten there? Why was he so out-of-it?
He tried to think back. What was the last thing he remembered?
Klaus. The party. Their big plan. They were going to take Klaus down. Had it worked?
The last thing he remembered . . . It had been going well. Damon had watched from right inside the door to the back porch. Klaus had bought Katherine's act as Max for a moment, they had made their move, and then . . . Kol had shown up. They hadn't been expecting that.
Damon struggled to remember what had happened next.
Max. The real Max had shown up, Klaus had lunged at her and then . . .
Damon's eyes flew open as he finally remembered what had happened. Klaus had been trying to stake Max, but Damon had jumped out in front of her. The stake had pierced his own heart instead of Max's. Then how in the world was he alive?
There was an audible gasp from almost everyone in the room as he sat up.
"Da-Damon?" breathed Elena, her face only about a foot away from his. He turned to look into her eyes. They were full of tears. She must have been the one who was crying. But they were also full of wonder and hope. "You're alive?" She asked, as confused about the finding as he was. "How?"
He surveyed the rest of the room. Caroline and Lexi were sitting on the couch opposite him, staring at him with wide eyes. Max sat in an armchair a few feet away, looking a little awkward at being in the middle of what was just a second ago an extremely sad group of friends, but still surprised at his sudden recovery from death. Lurking near the doorway was Katherine, her face filled with what might have been curiosity. And then there was Elena. Sitting on the floor next to him, her one hand on his, and her other wiping the tears away from her eyes.
Damon struggled for words for a moment before finally managing, "I don't know. The last thing I remember is diving in front of Max and then . . . nothing."
Elena glanced back at Caroline and then turned back to him, her thumb absentmindedly rubbing the back of his hand. "You were dead Damon. I heard your heart stop. I tried to feed you my blood, to heal you, but it was too late. You were totally gone. Klaus killed you with that stupid stake. I don't understand . . . How could you have possibly survived that?"
Katherine gave a humorless laugh and the group turned to look at her. "Well, I think we all know the answer to that question."
Elena grew angry a little too quickly and snapped, "We don't need your snappy commentary, Katherine. We all know I got there too late anyway. There is no way I turned him."
Suddenly, Damon closed his eyes. A lost memory flashed through his mind.
"Katherine?" he said, looking up from the book he was reading. He had nothing better to do until tonight, when they were going to make their movie on klaus at the party.
Katherine had just appeared at his door. As much as he used to enjoy her visits, he felt himself loathing them more and more. And he certainly wasn't in the mood at that moment. "What do you want?" he snapped, probably more sharply than he should have.
She began to walk into the room in her usual seductive way, but something was different this time. She wasn't overtly trying to be sexy. Damon frowned. What could she possibly be up to?
Katherine turned to him and said, "It's time."
Damon drew his eyebrows together. "Time for what?"
Katherine rolled her eyes and crossed her arms, surveying him. "It's time for me to turn you."
"What? Right now?" Damon asked, suddenly wondering why he had wanted to be turned in the first place. He craved the power it would give him, but it was also a terrifying idea, and it was permanent. He wanted to be the one who chose when he actually turned, not Katherine.
She smirked across from him, and then strutted over to face him. "Not exactly. I'm going to feed you my blood right now, and then, if you somehow make it thru tonight's little plan alive, I'm going to kill you with my bear hands."
In one swift move, she bit down on her own wrist and shoved it into his mouth. He felt the blood flowing down his throat and almost choked at it's metallic taste. Why would anyone think that tasted good?
She stepped away when she was sure he had swallowed at least a little of her blood. "Good. Now I know that even if you die, I won't lose you."
She leaned forward again, putting her hands on his knees and looking straight into his eyes. "Now I want you to forget about me ever coming to your room today and that I feed you my blood. We don't want to spoil the surprise, do we?"
Damon blinked a few times before his vision came back into focus. Everyone was still there, watching him closely.
Elena leaned forward, grabbing his other hand. "Did you just remember something?"
With that, Damon almost laughed. "You could say that." he replied. His eyes fell on Katherine's. "I remember exactly who turned me."
Stefan was completely rabid. Every person he meet along the road was nothing more then his next, unlucky victim, and he didn't care. There was nothing holding him back from drinking his fill. He was blissfully emotionless.
The truth, was that this wasn't a sudden occurrence. He had been building towards flipping his switch for a long time now. Damon's death was only the last straw.
In his current state, Stefan could remember the countless bodies he hand hid in the basement and the immeasurable guilt he had had for putting them there, but now he didn't understand it. Why had he let himself feel the guilt when this was so much easier?
But now he was free. Free from all the emotions that had been weighing him down, and free from the grief that he could barely stand for a minute while he got out of that house.
He didn't know where he was going, he only knew it was away. In Mystic Falls, there was too many people and too many things that could be used as a trigger for his emotions. He had lived there his entire life. The most logical thing to do, was to leave.
As the sun rose, he continued walking away from his hometown, killing anyone who came across his path. There was nothing that could stop him.
Matt busted into the dark living room right as Damon was saying, "Katherine turned me."
The whole ragtag group of vampires, doppelganger, and humans turned to look towards the front door. Matt paused, immediately noticing that he had walked into something important. "I, um . . ." He said, probably debating how to proceed. "I need to talk to Caroline." he said, finally deciding. "Alone." He added as an after thought.
Caroline looked around at her friends, her brain still trying to process what Damon had just said and the implications of it. They were all looking at her, waiting for her to make a move. She looked back at Matt and nodded. He was obviously extremely upset about something, and she was still sort of his girlfriend.
She stood up and headed towards him. Understanding the revelation about Damon and Katherine would have to wait a little.
The moment they were both outside and the door was shut, Matt turned to her, even more frantic then he had seemed a second before. "Caroline, I think I might be going crazy. I don't see any other way to explain what I saw. I just need to tell someone. Please help me."
Caroline grabbed his shoulders. "Okay, Matt, I'm listening. Calm down. Tell me what happened."
"I was at the party last night," he began, "and I saw . . ." He hesitated. "I saw something terrifying. Impossible."
Caroline felt her heart leap into her chest. What could he possibly have seen? So many things had happened last night that could have acting like this, and pretty much all of them lead to the truth that she was now a vampire. "Matt. What did you see? I promise I will believe you."
He nodded and took a deep breath. "I saw Stefan leave the party, and he was acting weird, so I decided to follow him. And then he walked a little way, and I thought I might have been going crazy, but then . . . he meet someone on the street who was out jogging. He talked to her for a minute, and then he just, I don't know, he, bit her neck, and killed her." Matt looked back up to Caroline, searching for some type of comfort that she wasn't able to give.
Caroline took a moment to process what he had just said. He had just told her that Stefan had gone off the deep end, this was not good news. She turned from Matt and grabbed the door, throwing it open, forgetting for a moment the newly turned Damon. "Elena, we have a new, bigger problem."
Elena looked up from Damon. "What is it?"
"Stefan's flipped the switch. He's gone full on ripper. Matt saw him."
Everyone quickly stood up, realizing the full implications of this. Elena took control. "We need to find him. Now. We should split up and search. Lexi you take Max and search. You go too Katherine. We will talk about what you think you were doing to Damon later."
Katherine rolled her eyes. "Saving his life, you idiot," she said under her breath before speeding out of the door.
Max and Lexi also nodded, quickly following Katherine out the door. Luckily, it was an extremely overcast day, so neither of them had to worry about sunlight.
Elena turned to Caroline and Matt. "Caroline, you deal with him, and I'm going to have to help Damon get used to his new identity as a member of the undead."
Caroline nodded and turned to Matt, who was standing in the doorway, looking both extremely confused and terrified. He had just seen a bunch of his friends superspeed out the door around him.
Caroline considered her options. She could compel him to forget, but she was tired of lying to him. It was about time she explained what was going on in Mystic Falls. Caroline took a deep breath, and told him everything. Vampires were real, she was one, and she had been the one to kill his sister.
Jeremy walked up to the door of his now dead girlfriend's grandmother's house, with his invisible girlfriend at his side. He turned to Bonnie, "Are you sure about this? You really think she will be able to help?"
Bonnie nodded. "She was the one who taught me everything I knew about witches and magic. If anyone knows anything to help us out, it's here."
Jeremy nodded. "Okay." He put up his hand and knocked. For a few seconds, nothing happened, and then the door opened, revealing an older lady. "Mrs. Bennet." He said, shaking her hand in greeting. "We need your help."
She cocked her head slightly to the side and surveyed the front of her lawn before looking back at Jeremy. "We?"
Jeremy quickly glanced over at Bonnie and then back to her Grams. "It's kind of a long story. But I'm a friend of Bonnie's and she and I could really use some advice. You know, supernatural advice."
She sighed and gestured for him to come in. He sat down on one of the outdated couches in her living room. She sat down across from him at stared at him for a moment before saying, "So what exactly is your problem?"
